Brassaї in Paris

From The Small Hours

By James Knight

Unknown Paris of delightful terrors
Unseen Paris of waste and rain
Paris of marionettes
Paris of iron dawns and dead streets
Paris weeping at twilight
Paris of corsets and limbs in windows and in minds
Paris of faceless men making signs across distances
Naked Paris
Paris of whores in the crying light
Paris of banal offerings
Of flesh of thighs of tits
Paris sweating through the close night
Paris stooping to put on her stockings
The anonymous customer scratching his arse
Paris of fleas of lice of rats of stale beer of dust
Buxom Paris stretching on a soiled divan
Whispering Paris
Paris of stark trees in the fog
Stark trees in the cold fog and light coming from 

     nowhere
Light coming from the hotel sign
Floating frozen
Paris of lonely benches and sleeping men
Paris of the solitary wanderer stopping to gaze with

     eyes of blind desire at posters advertising health

     and wealth
Paris of the empty boulevard
Paris of a phantom Seine and bridges bridges bridges
Criminal docks and towpaths
Paris perpetually dark perpetually autumnal
Paris of cafés where sharpfaced young men lean

     towards their darlings their eyes whetted on the

     sharp mirrors their hands not visible for now
Of cafés where smoking drudgery lifts a glass of beer

     to her cynical lips
Of cafés where eyes converge on the happy couple
Your eyes your uninvited eyes
Paris of voyeurs
Paris of look-but-don't-touch
Paris of inscrutable tableaux
Paris of signs
Paris of hieroglyphs
Secret signals riddled throughout the streets
Paris of graffiti of accumulations
Paris a text forever being written a painting never

     finished
Paris a woman applying fresh makeup while a man

     waits on the other side of

the screen
The spectral city smiling at midnight
Full of love
Paris kissing the moon

 Words and image by James Knight. You can buy his wonderful books and e-books here.